Imaginary Llama Art: 10 tips for colored pencils

Hey guys!

The post of today is dedicated to colored pencils. Everyone has used them at least once in life, as as a child. But colored pencils are not for children only. You can make amazing artworks using different techniques as perfect blending, linework, flat coloring ecc. You can give a look at Pinterest to see the big variety of things you can do with colored pencils.

If you are newbies with this supply and you need some easy tips this guide may help you!

I'll explain what I've learned during the years at art school by my drawing teacher. Online you'll find a lot of different tips, rember that there isn't a correct and unique way, you can learn, experiment and adopt the techniques you like the most. Art hasn't rules!

My technique is the classical (I don't use blenders) e the grain of the paper is part of the artwork.

If you need indications about which colored pencils you should choose please go to the end of the post.

Ready?

Here 10 tips to start coloring with colored pencils!

1 . Avoid shocks.

Yes, because when a pencil falls to the ground or you use it as drum stick XD the lead breaks down and the tip will fall when you'll sharpe the pencil. Some pencils have more fragile leads than other but it's a general rule valid for graphite pencils too.

2 . Keep the point sharpened.

A well sharpened tip allows a more accurate and clean coloring, expecially with details. Not all sharpener are the same, you should try some to find the right sharpener fr your pencils. I own two cheap metallic sharpeners, one works bad and one works good, unexpensive sharpeners can be good as well!

Pencils sharpened with two differnt sharpeners

3 . Use the right paper.

A too rough paper will "eat" the pencils and will give a unclean look to the artwork, a too smooth paper doesn't allow layering. I think a slightly rought paper is the best, one of my favorites is the Fabriano the 200g rought paper but any slightly rough paper will work well. You don't need an heavy weight because it's a dry technique, from 180g it works good.

4 . Color in a circular motion.

Spreading the color in a small circular motion allows a uniform result, to the contrary of coloring in straight motion.

You can see an example by this video I posted on Instagram.

Drawing I made on Phoenyx Arts paper

5 . Use light pressure and overlap colors.

Coloring using light pressure allows you adding layers with no ruining the grain of the paper. If you color pressing the pencil you'll burnish the paper flattening its tooth and you will not be able to add more layers.

You'll saturate the color adding more thin layers of the same or different color. Remember you can achieve various shades overlapping colors.

By the way you can use a little bit of pressure in same areas if you need more intense shades. An extra tip is to use yellow as last color in layering, often this color make the paper more impermeable to other colors, have you ever noticed that?

6 . Keep the pencil slighlty angled.

You must hold the pencil angled by 45° respect to the sheet, your hand will have a more fluid motion and blending will be simpler.

Tenete la matita inclinata di 45°

7 . Experiment with color layering.

As mentioned the colored pencils can be layered, you can obtain secondary colors by overlapping the primaries or modify the secondary and tertiary.

For example you can add green to blue to make turquoise or add complementary colors to desaturate the base color and obtain shadows.

Experimenting with layers and mixes will help you kowing your colored pencils better!

Sovrapposizione di colori

8 . Eraser is your friend.

Eraser is a good ally. With kneaded eraser you can remove the last layers of color or correct mistakes. The usual eraser (Staedtler is my favorite) is good for higlights. On the market there are some tools perfect for details as the electric or the pencil erasers.

My pencil and kneaded erasers

9 . Do coloring exercises.

Here some exercises you can do to improve you technique.

Draw three identical rettangles and choose some colors form your set, dark colors will work better for this:

-color the first rectangle with one color, it must be as smooth as possible, without darker areas or spots ;

- color the second with one color but shading it dark to light;

-color the third blending two different colors;

There are more useful exercises, if you want a tutorial please let me know with a comments!

10 . Use a protective coating.

If you use wax based pencils or graphite I suggetst you to use a proctive coating with UV filter specific for pencils. It is used to:

-fix the pigments on the paper;

-prevent the "wax bloom", those ugly whitish stains caused by the wax oxidation;

-protect the artwork by UV rays, and prevent the bleaching when you put it into the sunlight.

Some of the best UV filter coatings I know are Winsor & Newton , Lascaux, Schminke. (I put the links
to let you see the pictures of the products, you should search the availability in your country).
I use the Winsor & Newton.

Which pencils you should choose?

If you want to learn this technique I suggest you to avoid the classical colored pencils for children you find at the grocery store and choose higher quality products. You don't need to spend a lot of money, there are various brands that make nice quality colored pencils for no hight prices, perfect to practice.

On Amazon there are some affordable brands that I read good opinions about, as Castle Arts (that I tried and reviewed), Arteza, Zenacolor, all wax based.
If you're searching for professional colored pencils you can try the famous Prismacolor (wax based), Faber-Castell Luminance (oil based) and other.

Here I wrote the prices of the biggest sets but all brands produce smaller sets.